Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (e.g. Citrix XenDesktop, Microsoft Desktop Virtualization, and VMware VDI) deliver enormous management and costs savings throughout an enterprise. However, the benefits of virtualization can easily be lost if application performance hampers end user productivity, as often happens when virtual applications and desktops are delivered across a Wide Area Network (WAN).
Silver Peak’s WAN acceleration solution helps enterprises reap the rewards of virtualization by overcoming network challenges that impact the performance of VDI applications across the WAN. This is achieved using the following optimization techniques:
Network Acceleration: Silver Peak overcomes latency by mitigating the “chattiness” of TCP, the transport protocol used to by virtual applications for communication across the WAN. More specifically, Silver Peak appliances use various network acceleration techniques to send more data within specific windows and minimize the number of back and forth acknowledgements required prior to sending data. This improves the responsiveness of keystrokes in a virtual environment.
Network Integrity. Silver Peak fixes WAN quality issues with its Forward Error Correction (FEC) and Packet Order Correction (POC) technologies. FEC is used to rebuild dropped packets on the far end of a WAN link; POC is used to re-sequence packets that are delivered out of order. Both techniques are performed in real-time, eliminating the need to re-transmit data when packet delivery issues occur. This improves the responsiveness of VDI for a better end user experience.
Because the average enterprise has over 80 applications traversing the WAN, Silver Peak’s extensive Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities also play an important role in virtual environments. With Silver Peak, virtual applications and desktops can be prioritized over less important traffic, like Internet browsing. In addition, QoS can guarantee VDI and virtual applications get enough bandwidth across the WAN.
Network Memory™. All Silver Peak NX appliances are equipped with Network Memory™ technology, the industry’s premier solution for WAN deduplication. Network Memory is used to inspect all inbound and outbound WAN traffic in real-time, storing a single local instance of data on each appliance. Prior to sending information across the WAN, NX Series appliances compare real-time traffic streams to patterns stored using Network Memory. If a match exists, a short reference pointer is sent to the remote Silver Peak appliance, instructing it to deliver the traffic pattern from its local instance. Repetitive data is never sent across the WAN, saving bandwidth and enabling LAN-like application performance.
Silver Peak dedupes WAN traffic without adding a significant amount of latency (typically under 1 ms). This is an important differentiation because it enables Silver Peak to work on virtual applications and desktops. Other WAN deduplication solutions are forced to bypass this traffic because they add too much latency.
